
J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, f 

# _ # 

# * 

[FORCE COLLECTION.] £ 

! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 1 



No. 300. 



DEBATES 



OF 



CONSCIENCE, 



A DISTILLER, WHOLESALE DEALER, 



AND 



A RETAILER. 



BV HEMAN HUMPHREY, D. D. 

PRESIDENT OF AMHERST COLLEGE. 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 



NO 50 NASSAU-STREET, NEW-YORK. 



D. Fanshaw, Printer. 



2 DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. j\ \| c O C3Q. 

THE RUM DRINKING CHRISTIAN. 

The Lord pardon thy servant in this thing. — 2 Kings, 5 : 18. 

This was the petition of Naaman the Syrian, for the 
liberty of indulgence in a point where God and conscience 
condemned him. It is the prayer of many Christians, thus 
desiring some forbidden indulgence. It is the prayer of the 
rum drinking Christian. 

1. I shall show who the rum drinking Christian is. He 
is not the drunkard ; for the drunkard is no Christian. 

He is not the hard drinker ; though some professed Chris- 
tians, to their shame be it said, are hard drinkers. 

He is the Christian professing to drink temperately; 
priding himself on a prudent use of destructive poison. 

He is a man of good reputation in society ; and of regular 
standing in the church. He would sooner sacrifice all his 
property than be seen drunk. He deplores the immoralities 
of society ; is constant in his attendance on divine institu- 
tions, ard rejoices in the conversion of sinners and the 
spread of the Gospel — but he drinks rum, especially when 
engaged in any hard labor, as haying and harvesting. He 
cannot go into the field, or engage in fishing, ship building, 
or .in mechanical employment, without this or some other 
intoxicating liquor. When he comes home, he takes it to 
create an appetite. When he is wet, to keep him from a 
cold. When attending the sick, to ward ofT fevers. He gives 
it to his wife and children, and visitants and laborers, but al- 
ways prudently ; resolving to be temperate in all things. 
Such is the rum drinking Christian. 

2. He pursues a practice condemned by God and con- 
science. 

Against nothing does God in his word more solemnly 
warn his people than intoxicating liquor. " Who hath wo ? 
Who hath sorrow ? Who hath contentions ? Who hath bab- 
bling ? Who hath wounds without cause ? Who hath red- 
ness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine, they that 
go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine." 
The wine is an intoxicating liquor ; and God says, in view 
of its tremendous effects, not, use it prudently, but, look 

No. 300. Seepage 3 of cover. 



DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. S 

not upon it, avoid it, turn from it as the destroyer of the sou], 
for, at the last, it biteth Like a serpent and stingeth like an 
adder. Again, " It is not for kings to drink wine, nor for 
princes strong drink, lest they drink and forget the law, and 
pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted." Entire absti- 
nence is here enjoined upon all rulers. Why ? Because strong 
drink clouds the mind, destroys the perception and the sense 
of right and wrong, hardens the heart, and perverts the judg- 
ment ; and it is for the same reason the duty of all men,, that 
they may in perfect sobriety discharge all their obligations, 
In what stronger terms than are used throughout the sacred 
pages, could God say to his people, Touch not, taste not, 
handle not ? 

The Providence of God sometimes furnishes ru.es of ac- 
tion clear as his word. Whatever the general good requires, 
we are bound to do. Whatever the salvation of souls de- 
mand, we must sacrifice. Now, through the prevalence of 
intemperance, our country is on the brink of ruin. The 
church is in danger of being paralyzed in all her efforts. 
Thousands of families are reduced to degradation and 
wretchedness ; and thousands of souls are plunging into 
eternal wo. Fifty millions of gallons of distilled spirits are 
drunk in the United States every year ; (how great a portion 
of it by professed Christians, who can tell !) and no less than 
130,000 drunkards stagger in the streets of the nation every- 
day. This tremendous evil every man is caL. I, a the pro- 
vidence of God, to help check and suppress. But the com- 
mon sense of mankind decides that it can be checked and 
suppressed only by the entire disuse of ardent spirit in the 
religious and moral community. Every man therefore is 
required, in the providence of God, to practise entire absti- 
nence himself, and to cease giving strong drink to others. 
The Christian who does not do it, who drinks daily himself, 
and puts the bottle to his neighbor's mouth, acts in defiance 
of the word and providence of God ; I add, 

He acts against the remonstrance of his own conscience. 
Hundreds of once rum drinking, but now consistent Chris- 
tians, acknowledge that it was once so with them, while 
they periodically stimulated, and while they gave brandy 
and spirit to others. And the consciences of men act with 
great uniformity on such points. Once, indeed, the con- 
sciences of good men were little disturbed on the subject ; 

No. 300. 



16 pages.] DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. 

for but little light was thrown upon such subjects. But 
Christians are no longer blind. They have light. They 
see the evil, and the extent of intemperance ; and the remedy 
lies before them ; and now conscience must act ; and if they 
will set at defiance the warnings of God and the efforts of 
the temperate through the land, it must condemn them. 

3. The rum drinking Christian pleads for this practice 
as useful and necessary. Though it is fully shown from facts 
and the testimony of the experienced, that even a little strong 
drink is unnecessary and dangerous, he pleads that he can- 
not labor without it ; that his strength will fail him ; that it 
makes him feel better ; that he has more enjoyment of his 
food, and better sleep ; that he cannot get men to labor for 
him without it : that he will be unpopular in withholding it ; 
and that a prudent use can do no harm : and though he 
knows that his practice is condemned by the word and pro- 
vidence of God, yet so powerfully does the world and appe- 
tite plead, that he says, " The Lord pardon thy servant in 
this thing" 

Let the churches awake to a sense of the tremendous evil 
fostered in their bosoms. It is not enough that they expel 
drunkards from their communion ; they must mark their 
rum drinkers of every degree. Multitudes without, who 
make no pretensions to personal piety, have banished ardent 
spirit from their use as detestable and ruinous ; and the line 
must be drawn within the church, as it never has been, be- 
tween the temperate and the intemperate ; between him who 
is willing to deny himself and take up the cross, and him 
who pleads, The Lord pardon thy servant in this thing. If 
Paul said, he would not eat meat if it caused his brother to 
perish ; if we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, 
4ien let every Christian renounce his profession who will 
not in this day give up drinkmg ardent spirit. Ministers 
and churches, the voice of God calls loudly to you to "touch 
not, taste not, handle not," that through your example the 
world may be saved. 



Orders for Tracts will receive prompt attention, if ac- 

dressed to u The American Tract Society, No. 15C Nassau- 
street, New- York.'' 1 

No. 300. 



No. 300. 
DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE 



WITH A 



Distillery a Wholesale Dealer, and a Retailer. 



BY HEMAN HUMPHREY, D. D. 

President of Amherst College. 



DIALOGUE I. 

At the Distillery. 

FIRST INTERVIEW. 



Distiller. Good morning, Mr. Conscience; though I 
know you to be one of the earliest risers, especially of late, 
I hardly expected to meet you here at day dawn. 

Conscience. I am none too early, it seems, to find you at 
your vocation. But how are you going to dispose of this 
great black building ? 

Distiller. Why, I do not understand you 1 

Conscience. What are you doing with these boiling cra- 
ters, and that hideous worm there ? 

Distiller. Pray explain yourself. 

Conscience., Whose grain is that? and what is bread call- 
ed in the Bible ? 

Distiller. More enigmatical still ! 

Conscience. To what market do you mean to send that 
long row of casks ? and how many of them will it take, 
upon an average, tOvdig a drunkard's grave ? 

Distiller. Ah, I understand you now. I was hoping that 
I had quieted you on that score. But, I perceive you have 
come upon the old errand. You intend to read me another 



2 DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. [122 

lecture upon the sixth commandment. But what would 
you have me do % 

Conscience. Put out these fires ! 

Distiller. Nay, but hear me. I entered into this business 
with your approbation. The neighbors all encouraged me. 
My brethren in the church said it would open a fine mar- 
ket for their rye, aud corn, and cider ; and even my minister, 
happening to come along when we were raising, took a 
little with us under the shade, and said he loved to see his 
people industrious and enterprising. 

Conscience. " The times of this ignorance God winked 
at — but now commandeth all men, every where, to repent." 
In one part of your defence, at least, you are incorrect. It 
was not my voice, but my silence, if any thing, which gave 
consent ; and I have always suspected there was some foul 
play in the matter, and that I was kept quiet for the time 
by certain deleterious opiates. Indeed, I distinctly recollect 
the morning bitters and evening toddy, which you was ac- 
customed to give me ; and though I thought but little of it 
then, I now see that it deadened all my sensibilities. This, 
I am aware, is no excuse. I ought to have resisted — I ought 
to have refused, and to have paralyzed the hand which put 
the cup to my lips. And when you struck the first stroke 
on this ground, I ought to have warned you off with the 
voice of seven thunders. That I did not then speak out, and 
do my duty, will cause me extreme regret and self-reproach 
to the latest hour of my life. 

Distiller. But what, my dear Conscience, has made you 
all at once so much wiser, not only than your former self, 
but than hundreds of enlightened men in every community, 
whose piety was never doubted % I myself know, and have 
heard of not a few good Christians, including even deacons 
and elders, who still continue to manufacture ardent spirit, 
and think, or seem to think it right. 

Conscie?ice. And think it right ! Ask their consciences. 



123] DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. 3 

I should like to witness some of those interviews which 
take place in the night, and which make Christian distil- 
lers — (what a solecism ! ) — so much more irritable than they 
used to be. I know one of the brotherhood, at least, whose 
conscience has been goading him these five years, and yet 
he perseveres. 

Distiller. But if I stop, what will the people do ? Half 
the farmers in town depend upon their rye and cider to pay 
their taxes, and even to support the Gospel ! 

Conscience. So then, you are pouring out these streams 
of liquid death over the land, and burning up your own 
neighbors, to enable them to pay their taxes and support re- 
ligion ! Why don't you set up a coffin factory, to create a 
brisker demand for lumber, and induce people to die faster, 
so as on the one hand to help them pay their taxes, and on 
the other to give you a fair profit, by increasing your busi- 
ness ! It will not do. I tell you, that I can give you no 
peace till you put out these fires and destroy that worm. 

Distiller. How can I % Here is all my living, especially 
since, as you know, my eldest son fell into bad habits, in 
spite of all the good advice I daily gave him, and squan- 
dered what might have afforded me a comfortable inde- 
pendence. 

Conscience. Suppose you was now in Brazil, and the 
owner of a large establishment to fit out slave traders with 
hand-cuffs for the coast of Africa, and could not change 
your business without considerable pecuniary sacrifice ; 
would you make the sacrifice; or would you keep your 
fires and hammers still going ? 

Distiller. Why do you ask such puzzling questions? 
You know I don't like them at all, especially when my 
mind is occupied with other subjects. Leave me, at least 
till I can compose myself, I beseech you. 

Conscience. Nay, but hear me through. Is it right for 
you to go on manufacturing fevers, dropsy, consumption, / J s- 



4 DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE, [1^24 

iirium tremens, and a host of other frightful diseases, be- 
cause your property happens to be vested in a distillery? 
Is it consistent with the great law of love by which you 
profess to be governed ? Will it bear examination in a dy- 
ing hour ? Shall I bid you look back upon it from the brink 
of eternity, that you may from such recollections gather 
holy courage for your pending conflict with the king of 
terrors ? Will you bequeath this magazine of wrath and per- 
dition to your only son not already ruined, and go out of the 
world rejoicing that you can leave the whole concern in the 
hands of one who is so trust- worthy and so dear ? 

[Here the Distiller leaves abruptly, without answering 
a word.] 



SECOND INTERVIEW. 

Distiller. [Seeing Conscience approach, and beginning to 
tremble.) What, so soon and so early at your post again ? 
I did hope for a short respite. 

Conscience. O, I am distressed — I cannot hold my peace. 
I am pained at my very heart. 

Distiller. Do be composed, I beseech you, and hear 
what I have to say. Since our last interview I have resolved 
to sell out, and I expect the purchaser on in a very few days. 

Conscience. What will he do with the establishment when 
he gets it ? 

Distiller. You must ask him and not me. But whatever 
he may do with it, I shall be clear. 

Conscience. I wish I could be sure of that ; but let us see. 
Though you will not make poison by the hundred barrels 
any longer yourself, you will sell this laboratory of death 
to another man, for the same horrid purpose ! You will not, 
with your own hands, go on forging daggers for maniacs 
to use upon themselves and their friends, provided you can 
get some one to take your business at a fair price ! You 



125] DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. 5 

will no longer drag the car of Juggernaut over the bodies 
of prostrate devotees, if you can sell out the privilege to good 
advantage ! 

Distiller. Was ever any man's conscience so captious 
before ? You seem determined not to be satisfied with any 
thing. But beware ; by pushing matters in this way you 
will produce a violent " reaction." Even professors of reli- 
gion will not bear it. For myself, I wish to treat you with 
all possible respect ; but forbearance itself must have its 
limits. # 

Conscience. Possibly you may be able to hold me in 
check a little longer; but I am all the while gathering 
strength for an onset, which you cannot withstand ; and if 
you cannot bear these kind remonstrances now, how will 
you grapple with " the worm that never dies?" 

Distiller. Enough, enough. I will obey your voice. But 
why so pale and death-like ? 

Conscience. O, I am sick, I am almost suffocated. These 
tartarean fumes, these dreadful forebodings, these heart-rend- 
ing sights, and above all, my horrid dreams, I cannot en- 
dure them. There comes our nearest neighbor, stealing 
across the lots, with his jug and half bushel of rye. What is 
his errand, and where is his hungry, shivering family ? And 
see there too, that tattered, half-starved boy, just entering 
the yard with a bottle — who sent him here at this early 
hour ? All these barrels — -where are the wretched beings 
who are to consume this liquid fire, and to be consumed 
by it? 

Distiller. Spare me, spare me, I beseech you. By going 
on at this rate a little longer you will make me as nervous 
as yourself. 

Conscience. But I cannot close this interview till I have 
related one of the dreams to which I just alluded. It was 
only last night that I suiFered in this way, more than tongue 
can tell. The whole terrific vision is written in letters of 

Vol. 10. 2 F 



6 DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. [126 

fire upon the tablet of my memory ; and I feel it all the 
while burning deeper and deeper. 

I thought I stood by a great river of melted lava, and 
while I was wondering from what mountain or vast abyss it 
came, suddenly the field of my vision was extended to the 
distance of several hundred miles, .and I perceived that, in- 
stead of springing from a single source, this rolling torrent of 
fire was fed by numerous tributary streams, and these again 
by smaller rivulets. And what do you think I heard and 
beheld, as I stood petrified with astonishment and horror ! 
There were hundreds of poor wretches struggling and just 
sinking in the merciless flood. As I contemplated the scene 
still more attentively, the confused noise of boisterous and 
profane merriment, mingled with loud shrieks of despair, 
saluted my ears. The hair of my head stood up — and look- 
ing this way and that way, I beheld crowds of men, women 
and children, thronging down to the very margin of the ri- 
ver — some eagerly bowing down to slake their thirst with the 
consuming liquid, and others convulsively striving to hold 
them back. Some I saw actually pushing their neighbors 
headlong from the treacherous bank, and others encourag- 
ing them to plunge in, by holding up the fiery temptation 
to their view. To ensure a sufficient depth of the river, so 
that destruction might be made doubly sure, I saw a great 
number of men, and some whom I knew to be members of 
the church, laboriously turning their respective contribu- 
tions of the glowing and hissing liquid, into the main chan- 
nel. This was more than I could bear. I was in perfect tor- 
ture. But when I expostulated with those who were nearest 
to the place where I stood, they coolly answered, This is 
the way in which we get our living ! 

But what shocked me more than all the rest, and curdled 
every drop of blood in my veins, was the sight which I had 
of this very distillery pouring out its tributary stream of 
fire ! And O, it distracts, it maddens me to think of it. There 
you yourself stood feeding the torrent which had already 



127] DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. 7 

swallowed up some of your own family, and threatened 
every moment to sweep you away ! This last circumstance 
brought me from the bed, by one convulsive bound, into the 
middle of the room ; and I awoke in an agony which I veri- 
ly believe I could not have sustained for another moment. 
Distiller. I will feed the torrent no longer. The fires 
of my distillery shall be put out. From this day, from this 
hour, I. renounce the manufacture of ardent spirit for ever. 



DIALOGUE II. 

Wholesale Dealers Counting Room. 

Conscience. {Looking over the leger with a serious air.) 
What is that last invoice from the West-Indies? 

Rum Dealer. Only a few casks of fourth proo£ for par- 
ticular customers. 

Conscience. And that domestic poison, via New-Orleans; 
and on the next page, that large consignment, via Erie 
Canal ? 

Dealer. O, nothing but two small lots of prime whiskey, 
such as we have been selling these twenty years. But why 
these chiding inquiries ? They disquiet m£ exceedingly. 
And to tell you the plain truth, I am more than half offended 
at this morbid inquisitiveness. 

Conscience. Ah, I am afraid, as I have often told you, 
that this is a bad business ; and the more I think of it, the 
~-~re it troubles me. 

Dealer. Why so 1 You are always preaching up indus- ' 
try as a Christian virtue, and my word for it, were I to ne- 
glect my business, and saunter about the hotels and steam- 
boat wharves, as some do, you would fall into convulsions, 
as if I had committed the unpardonable sin. 

Conscience. Such pettish quibbling is utterly unworthy 



8 DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. [128 

of your good sense and ordinary candor. You know, as 
well as I do, the great difference between industry in some 
safe and honest calling, and driving a business which car- 
ries poverty and ruin to thousands of families. 

Dealer. Honest industry ! This is more cruel still. You 
have known me too long to thfow out such insinuations ; 
and besides, it rs notorious, that some of the first merchants 
in our city are engaged, far more extensively, in the same 
traffic. 

Conscience. Be it so. " To their own Master they stand 
or fall." But if fair dealing consists in " doing as we would 
be done by," how can a man of your established mercantile 
and Christian reputation sustain himself, if he continues to 
deal in an article which he knows to be more destructive 
than all the plagues of Egypt % 

Dealer. Do you intend, then, to make me answerable for 
all the mischief that is done by ardent spirit, in the whole 
state and nation? What I sell is a mere drop of the bucket, 
compared with the consumption of a single county. Where 
is the proof that the little which my respectable customers 
carry into the country, with their other groceries, ever does 
any harm ? How do you know that it helps to make such 
a frightful host of drunkards and vagabonds ? And if it did, 
whose fault wQuld it be % I never gave nor sold a glass of 
whiskey to a tippler in my life. Let those who will drink to 
excess, and make brutes of themselves, answer for it. 

Conscience. Yes, certainly they must answer for it; but 
will that excuse those who furnish the poison ?- Did you 
never hear of abettors and accessaries, as well as principals 
in crime ? When Judas, *in all the agony of remorse and 
despair, threw down the thirty pieces of silver before the 
chief priests and elders, exclaiming, / have sinned, in that 
I have betrayed the innocent blood — they coolly answered, 
What is that to us ? See thou to that. And was it there- 
fore nothing to them ? Had they no hand in that cruel tra- 



129] DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. 9 

gedy? Was it nothing to Pilate — nothing to Herod — no- 
thing to the multitude who were consenting to the cruci- 
fixion of the Son of God — because they did not drive the 
nails and thrust the spear ? 

O, when I think of what you are doing to destroy the 
bodies and souls of men, I cannot rest. It terrifies me at all 
hours of the night. Often and often, when I am just losing 
myself in sleep, I am startled by the most frightful groans 
and unearthly imprecations, coming out of these hogsheads. 
And then, those long processions of rough made coffins 
and beggared families, which I dream of, from night-fall till 
day-break, they keep me all the while in a cold sweat, and 
I can no longer endure them. 

Dealer. Neither can L Something must be done. You 
have been out of your head more than half the time for this 
six months. I have tried all the ordinary remedies upon 
you without the least effect. Indeed every new remedy 
seems only to aggravate the disease. O, what would not I 
give for the discovery of some anodyne which would lay 
these horrible phantasms. The case would be infinitely less 
trying, if I could sometimes persuade you, for a night or 
two, to let me occupy a different apartment from yourself; 
for when your spasms come on, one might as well try to 
sleep with embers in his bosom, as where you are. 

Conscience. Would it mend the matter at all, if, instead of 
sometimes dreaming, I were to be always wide awake? 

Dealer. Ah, there's the grand difficulty. For I find that 
when you do wake up, you are more troublesome than ever. 
Then you are always harping upon my being a professor 
of religion, and bringing up some text of Scripture, which 
might as well be let alone, and which you would not ring 
in my ears, if you had any regard to my peace, or even your 
own. More than fifty times, within a month, have you 
quoted, u By their fruits ye shall know them" In fact, so 
uncharitable have you grown of late, that from the drift of 
some of your admonitions, a stranger would think me but 



10 DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. [130 

iittle, if any, better than a murderer. And all because some 
vagabond or other may possibly happen to shorten his 
days by drinking a little of the identical spirit which passes 
througli my hands. 

Conscience. You do me bare justice when you say, that 
I have often reproved you,' and more earnestly of late than 
I formerly did. But my remonstrances have always been 
between you and me alone. If I have charged you with 
the guilt of hurrying men to the grave and to hell, by this 
vile traffic, it has not been upon the house-top. I cannot, it 
is true, help knowing how it grieves your brethren, gratifies 
the enemies of religion, and excites the scorn of drunkards 
themselves, to see your wharf covered with the fiery ele- 
ment ; but I speak only in your own par. To yourself I 
have wished to prove a faithful monitor, though I have sad 
misgivings, at times, even with regard to that. You will 
bear me witness, however, that I have sometimes trembled 
exceedingly, for fear that I should be compelled, at last, to 
carry the matter up by indictment to the tribunal of Eternal 
Justice. _ 

To avoid this dreadful necessity, let me once more reason 
the case with you in few words. You know perfectly well r 
that ardent spirit kills its tens of thousands in the United 
States every year ; and there is no more room to doubt that 
many of these lives are destroyed by the very liquor which 
you sell, than if you saw them staggering under it into the 
drunkard's grave. How then can you possibly throw ofi 
blood-guiltiness, with the light which you now enjoy ? In 
faithfulness to your soul, and to Him whose vicegerent I 
am, I cannot say less than this, especially if you persist any 
longer in the horrible traffic 1 

Dealer. Pardon me, my dear Conscience, if under the 
excitement of the moment I complained of your honest and 
continued importunity. Be assured, there is no friend in 
the world, with whom I am so desirous of maintaining a 



131] DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. 11 

good understanding as with yourself. And for your relief 
and satisfaction, I now give you my solemn pledge, that I 
will close up this branch of my business as soon as possi- 
ble. Indeed, I have commenced the process already. My 
last consignments are less, by more than one half, than were 
those of the preceding year ; and I intend that, when an- 
other year comes about, my books shall speak still more 
decidedly in my favor. 

Conscience. These resolutions would be perfectly satis- 
factory, if they were in the present tense. But if it was 
wrong to sell five hundred casks last year, how can it be 
right to sell two hundred this year, and one hundred next % 
If it is criminal to poison forty men at one time, how can it 
be innocent to poison twenty at another ? If you may not 
throw a hundred fire brands into the city, how will you 
prove that you may throw one? 

Dealer. Very true, very true — but let us wave this point 
for the present. It affects me very strangely. 

Conscience. How long, then, will it take to dry up this 
fountain of death ! 

Dealer. Don't call it so, I beseech you ; but I intend to 
be entirely oat of the business in two or three years, at 
farthest. 

Conscience. Two or three years ! Can you, then, after all 
that has passed between us, persist two or three years lon- 
ger in a contraband traffic % I verily thought, that when we 
had that long conference two or three months ago, you re- 
solved to close the concern at once; and that, when we 
parted, I had as good as your promise, that you would. 
Surely you cannot so soon have forgotten it. 

Dealer. No ; I remember that interview but too well — 
for I was never so unhappy in my life. I did almost resolve, 
and more than half promise, as you say. But after I had 
time to get a little composed, I thought you had pushed 
matters rather too far ; and that I could convince you of it, 



12 DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. [132 

at a proper time. I see, however, that the attempt would be 
fruitless. But, as I am anxious for a compromise, let me ask 
whether, if I give away all the profits of this branch of my 
business to the Bible Society, and other religious institu- 
tions, till I can close it up, you will not be satisfied ? 

Conscience. Let me see. Five hundred dollars, or one 
hundred dollars, earned to promote the cause of religion by 
selling poison ! By killing husbands, and fathers, and bro- 
thers, and torturing poor women and children ! It smells of 
blood — and can God possibly accept of such an offering 1 

Dealer. So then, it seems, I must stop the sale at once, or 
entirely forfeit what little charity you have left. 

Conscience. You must. Delay is death — death to the 
consumer at least ; and how can you flatter yourself that it 
will not prove your own eternal death ? My convictions are 
decisive, and be assured, I deal thus plainly because I love 
you, and cannot bear to become your everlasting tormentor. 

DIALOGUE III. 

At the Retailer's stand. 

Conscience. Do you know that little half-starved, bare- 
footed child, that you just sent home with two quarts of 
rank poison ? 

(Retailer hums a tune to himself, and affects not to hear 
the question.) 

Conscience. I see by the paper of this morning, that the 
furniture of Mr. M. is to be sold under the hammer to-mor- 
row. Have I not often seen him in vmrr tap-room ? 

Retailer. I am extremely busy just now, in bringing up 
our ledger. 

Conscience. Have you heard how N abused his fa- 
mily, and turned them all into the street the other night, 
after being supplied by you with whiskey % 



133] DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. 13 

Retailer. He is a brute, and ought to be confined in a 
dungeon six months at least, upon bread and water. 

Conscience. Was not S , who hung himself lately, 

one of your steady customers ? and where do you think his 
soul is now fixed for eternity ? You sold him rum that even- 
ing, not ten minutes before you went to the prayer meeting, 
and had his money in your pocket (for you would not trust 
him) when you led in the exercises. I heard you ask him 
once, why he did not attend meeting, and send his children 
to the Sabbath-school ; and I shall never forget his answer, 
" Come, you talk like a minister ; but, after all, we are 
about of one mind — at least in some things. Let me have 
my jug and be going." 

Retailer. I know he was an impudent hardened wretch ; 
and though his death was extremely shocking, I am glad 
to be rid of him. 

Conscience. Are you ready to meet him at the bar of 
God, and to say to the Judge, " He was my neighbor — I 
saw him going down the broad way, and I did every thing 
that a Christian could do to save him ?" 

Retailer. (Aside. O that I could stifle the upbraidings 
of this cruel monitor.) You keep me in constant torment. 
This everlasting cant about rank poison, and liquid fire, 
and blood, and murder, is too much for even a Christian to 
put up with. Why, if any body but Conscience were to 
make such insinuations and charges, he would be indicta- 
ble as a foul slanderer, before a court of justice. 

Conscience. Is it slander, or is it because I tell you the 
truth, that your temper is so deeply ruffled under my re- 
monstrances ? Suppose I were to hold my peace, while your 
hands are becoming more and more deeply crimsoned with 
this bloody traffic. What would you say to me, when you 
come to meet that poor boy, who just went out, and his drunk- 
en father, and broken-hearted mother at the bar of God? 



14 DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. [134 

Would you thank your ccnscience for having let you alone 
while there was space left for repentance ? 

Retailer. Ah, had honest trader ever such a conscience 
to deal with before % Always just so uncompromising — al- 
ways talking about the " golden rule" — always insisting 
upon a moral standard which nobody can live up to — 
always scenting poverty, murder, and suicide in every 
glass of whiskey, though it were a mile off. The truth is, 
you are not fit to live in this world at all. Acting in con- 
formity with your more than puritanical rules, would 
starve any man and his family to death. 

Conscience. Well, here comes another customer — see the 
carbuncles ! Will you fill his bottle with wrath, to be poured 
out without mixture, by and by, upon your own head ? Do 
you not know that his pious wife is extremely ill, and suf- 
fering for want of every comfort, in their miserable cabin % 

Retailer. No, Mr. E. go home and take care of your fa- 
mily. I am determined to harbor no more drunkards here. 

Conscience. You mean to make a distinction then, do you, 
between harboring those who are already ruined, and help- 
ing to destroy such as are now respectable members of so- 
ciety. You will not hereafter tolerate a single drunkard on 
your premises — but — 

Retailer. Ah, I see what you are aiming at ; and really, 
it is too much for any honest man, and still more for any 
Christian to bear. You know it is a long time since I have 
pretended to answer half your captious questions. There's 
no use in it. It only leads on to others still more impertinent 
and puzzling. If I am the hundredth part of that factor of 
Satan which you would make me, I ought to be dealt with, 
and cast out of the church at once ; and why don't my good 
brethren see to it % 

Conscience. That's a hard question, which they, perhaps, 
better know how to answer than I do. 

Retailer. But have you forgotten, my good Conscience, 



135] DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. 15 

that in retailing spirit, I am under the immediate eye and 
sanction of the laws. Mine is no contraband traffic, as you 
very well know. I hold a license from the rulers and 
fathers of the state, and have paid my money for it into the 
public treasury. Why do they continue to grant and sell 
licenses, if it is wrong for me to sell rum ? 

Conscience. Angther hard question, which I leave them 
to answer as best they can. It is said, however, that public 
bodies have no soul, and if they have no soul, it is difficult 
to see how they can have any conscience ; and if not, what 
should hinder them from selling licenses? But suppose 
the civil authorities should offer to sell you a license to 
keep a gambling-house, or a brothel, would you purchase 
such a license, and present it as a salvo to your conscience 7 

Retailer. I tell you once more, there is no use in trying 
to answer your questions ; for say what I will, you have the 
art of turning every thing against me. It was not always 
so, as you must very distinctly remember. Formerly I 
could retail hogshead after hogshead of all kinds of spirits, 
and you slept as quietly as a child. But since you began 
to read these Reports and Tracts about drinking, and to at- 
tend Temperance meetings, I have scarcely had an hour's 
peace of my life. I feared that something like this would 
• be the effect upon your nervous temperament, when you 
►**"began ; and you may recollect that I strongly objected to 
► your troubling yourself with these new speculations. It now 
grieves me to thmk that I ever yielded to your importu- 
nity ; and beware that you do not push me to extremities in 
this matter, for I have about come to the resolution that I 
will have no more of these mischievous pamphlets, either 
about my store or tavern; and that your Temperance 
Agents may declaim to the winds and walls, if they please. 

Conscience. I am amazed at your blindness and ob- 
stinacy. It is now from three to five years since I began to 
speak (though in a kind of indistinct under-tone at first) 

11 



16 DEBATES OF CONSCIENCE. [136 

against this bloody traffic. I have reasoned, I have remon- 
strated, and latterly I have threatened and implored with 
increasing earnestness. At times you have listened, and 
been convinced that the course which you are pursuing, in 
this day of light, is infamous, and utterly inconsistent with 
a Christian profession. But before your convictions and 
resolutions have time to ripen into action, the love of 
money regains its ascendancy ; and thus have you gone on 
resolving^ and relapsing, and re-resolving : one hour at 
the preparatory lecture, and the next unloading whiskey at 
your door; one moment mourning over the prevalence 
of intemperance, and the next arranging your decanters to 
entice the simple — one day partaking of the cup of the Lord 
at his table, and the next, offering the cup of devils to 
your Neighbors — one day singing, 

" All that I have and all I am, 
" I consecrate to Thee j" 

and the next, for the sake of a little gain, sacrificing your 
character, and polluting all you can induce to drink ! O, 
how can I hold my peace? How can I let you alone? If 
you will persist, your blood, and the blood of those whom 
you thus entice and destroy, be upon your own head. 
Whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear, I shall 
not cease to remonstrate ; and when I can do no more to • « 
reclaim you, I will sit down at your gate, in the bitterness* #< 
of despair, and cry, Murder! Murder ! ! MURDER ! ! ! * 

Retailer. (Pale and trembling,) " Go thy way for this 
time j when I have a convenient season I will call for thee." 



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AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

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